Release
The film opened at Gothenburg Film Festival on February 3, 2006. The response from Swedish reviewers was mostly mediocre, with a few exceptions. The movie did very average at the box office in Sweden and seemed to be a failure. That all changed however at the Cannes film festival, where the movie was applauded, and sold for distribution to over 40 countries. According to the producers, Frostbiten became the first horror movie ever to be screened in North Korea. The movie was a big hit in Russia and opened for Anders Banke's career in the Russian film industry. Frostbiten was by far the most popular Swedish movie on the foreign markets that year.
The response was very mixed. In Sweden the film was met with mediocre to negative reviews. Aftonbladet gave it a 3/5 score, calling it an enjoyable horror film. Expressen panned the film, calling it "a meaningless splatterfilm". Swedish filmsite Moviemix gave the film a 5/6, but said the film did not deliver the splatter climax he wanted at the end.
IGN gave it a 7 out of 10 score and said that despite its shortcomings it was very entertaining. The reviewer also pointed out that the setting was perfect and commented that the Swedish landscapes provided a wonderful backdrop for the movie's dark subject matter and that it looked beautiful in a very gruesome kind of way.
The reception was better internationally; Bloody Disgusting gave the film 4/5, calling it a masterpiece, saying that the film had a strong cast and the film the most enjoyable vampire film since the 80s, and the horror site Eatmybrains.com gave it 4/5 stars. Film4 gave the film 3.5/5, saying that the wartime neutrality of Sweden theme and anxieties about migration (Becket dishonestly sneaking into Sweden and creating a master race) made the reviewer uncomfortable and it took away some of the fun.
Most critics praised Emma Åberg's performance as Vega, saying that she stole every scene she was in. Jonas Karlström also received praise for his part as the unfortunate intern Sebastian and mentioned the scene where the newly vampiric Sebastian meet Cornelia's priest father and is served garlic-briased trout as one of the film's strongest and funniest moments.
Frostbiten won the best film award at Fantasporto and collected the several awards at Screamfest.
Snarkerati ranked this Frostbite as the 43th best vampirefilm based on critic rating statistics.
Read more about this topic: Frostbite (2006 Film)
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